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...which was a bit of a cop out when it was Rin who suggested they go out, literally out of the blue so heh.

Actually, the romance can be completely eliminated with Komari, Kudo, Haruka and Mio to some extent.
The problem is for Yuiko's route, as romance has a huge impact on it. So while Rin will be a no brainer in term of the "canon" choice, tweeking Yuiko's route will be a tad of a headache.

...which was a bit of a cop out when it was Rin who suggested they go out, literally out of the blue so heh.

Actually, the romance can be completely eliminated with Komari, Kudo, Haruka and Mio to some extent.
The problem is for Yuiko's route, as romance has a huge impact on it. So while Rin will be a no brainer in term of the "canon" choice, tweeking Yuiko's route will be a tad of a headache.

While I agree that Komari, Haruka and Mio's romance can be eliminated...I dunno about Kud, I think it's on the same level of importance as the romance is in Anego's route. Tweeking Kud's route will probably be as big a headache as Anego's.

But I agree, if they choose to not go with the loops and demote Riki from boyfriend to just friend (with the girls possibly having a crush on him and sticking Rin with the canon romance) there will have to be some major changes, not just to Anego and Kud's routes but also to the other girl's.

Honestly, despite a few Meh details here and there I'm enjoying the anime, but if they don't go with the loops and Riki romance with the girls I might drop the anime...I'll give it a shot though...but no guarantees xD

Kudo's route is sort of okay, since you can actually change the plot a bit so that you have either her wondering if she can have fun with the LB, while leaving her mother alone who isn't having a great time back in her homeland. It isn't like romance is mandatory, although it does remove a serious chunk of her route.

Really, in comparison to Rin and Yuiko, that's still doable.

That said, if we get EX routes, that will be impossible for Saya and Kanata, and Sasami would be HELLUVA weird (well, Sasami's route was already on the whacky side...)

Kudo's route is sort of okay, since you can actually change the plot a bit so that you have either her wondering if she can have fun with the LB, while leaving her mother alone who isn't having a great time back in her homeland. It isn't like romance is mandatory, although it does remove a serious chunk of her route.

Really, in comparison to Rin and Yuiko, that's still doable.

That said, if we get EX routes, that will be impossible for Saya and Kanata, and Sasami would be HELLUVA weird (well, Sasami's route was already on the whacky side...)

I haven't played the EX routes so I wouldn't know...but the part I was thinking of the most is when Kud is chained up, there's a lot of "love" in the scene and it's the love between them, will to live and all that which breaks the chains. Also without a loop I wonder how they will end up cramming the whole of her leaving and then returning some time later.

Loops are not needed for Komari, Haruka and Mio's routes but they sure as hell are for Rin, Anego and Kud routes for them to make sense, especially with Refrain happening afterward. LB is one of the few VNs where going through different routes is actually all canon rather than just What Ifs, if they take that part away in the anime then a huge, important chunk of the plot gets royally screwed up.

LB is one of the few VNs where going through different routes is actually all canon rather than just What Ifs, if they take that part away in the anime then a huge, important chunk of the plot gets royally screwed up.

I really think that the way the story is told should've been like how Amagami handled it. Until the end, non VN players would think it was all "what if" stories which are actually a part of the progression towards Refrain. By using that method, they could've revisited earlier timelines and insert scenes that were not shown at the time. For example, we go Anego's first battle last week. If we were not on her story, that battle could've been skipped until it was time for her "what if" story to begin. Sadly, it's pointless to think about this now...

So this week we get to see the beginning to Komari's route. I don't remember how much Rin is involved in her story but, did the anime adapters decide to include Rin into Komari's route a bit? I would check the VN but I'm not really a fan of her. I'm mostly going to pay attention to Haruka's and Kud's events. So far the anime is not doing a good job putting them in the spotlight, but I'll wait and see for when it comes that important time for their story to start.

So after finally watching episode 4 I really believe they are going the "No Loop, No Romance" route with the common route mixed in with the girls's personal routes which may come along one at the time. I'm pretty damn sure there won't be any loops, the way they are mixing the routes with the common route makes it hard to make loops happen UNLESS they pull something like scenes where the girls act differently after their route is finished and there's a loop (for example, Haruka getting along with her sister after her route finishes and the world loops over or Komari casually mentioning her brother) but I highly doubt this will be done. Even if it were done...it would leave a bad taste in my mouth.
I seriously fear how they will handle certain routes without loops...

I certainly did not like how all the Little Busters went together to the old folks home, to me it was a clear message that they plan on involving the rest of the LB group in the girl's routes so as to not form any bonds beyond friendship between Riki and the girls. As stated before the romance between Riki and the girls is not a necessary factor in about half of the girl routes but nevertheless I still viewed it as important overall. I liked the relationships Riki formed with the girls each in different ways but I have a feeling what will happen here will be that Rin will be put on a Canon Couple Pedestal...this annoys me despite loving Rin myself (then again I love all the LB girls). How are they even gonna do Anego's route without romance between Riki and Anego? Having her not want to lose the whole team instead of just Riki...I suppose that could work but it would greatly hurt the experience.

After this episode...it is the first time I seriously fear for the direction this anime is heading. Of course this could be the VN player in me but I not only liked the linearity, relationships and looping but I feel them to be incredibly important.
That said I am also aware of the time restrictions, the anime will have what? 24 or 26 episodes? And judging by the way things are going with Komari's route, I'm guessing each route should be 3 episodes long? That makes it 15 episodes for the 5 girls routes, leaving around 10 episodes for the Rin routes, baseball match and refrain. Rin1 can be done in an episode, but Rin2 might need 2 or 3 episodes, let's say then we have an episode for the baseball match, leaving 5 or 6 episodes for Refrain which isn't a small easy to handle part of the plot xD. I seriously dunno how they'll handle it and I fear for the anime.

Again, it could be the VN player in me speaking but the common route and the little things that happen within it are part of what makes LB such a good story. We have the common route that sees the building of the new LB team, their interactions and their bonds growing. Then in each girl route we see Riki grow closer to the girls while growing stronger. Finally in Refrain we see the bond between the original members of the team and Riki's strength in putting the team back together. This all is so important but if they just blitz through content it's gonna hurt the VN side of me like a kick in the nuts xD

Honestly as I've said before I'll keep giving the anime a chance without much complaining, I rather like how it's going so far (despite some of the changes making me turn my head a bit). I'll stick around to see what happens after Komari's route is done, if they loop, if they jump into another route with the common route mixed in or whatever they plan on doing...only then will I decide if I continue watching or not (and scrub the memory of the anime from my head). That's just how important the VN has been to me, I rather not have an anime if it can't be faithful to the VN.

If they are converting the heroine routes from a romance standpoint then I applaud them. As I've stated, they were never really that important to the overall story, and even I could see some ways by which they might be smoothly converted into situations wherein the role of friendship, and not romance, is emphasized. I know this might displease some of the "pairers" in here, but such is the message of Little Busters! in the end; even the supposedly main romance of Riki+Rin is barely touched upon even in EX where they expanded upon it in the epilogue.

From what I read, the group was involved in the old people visit? That's how I envisioned it too. I would think the rooftop nighttime scene would have to be minimized or uninvolved - or perhaps it'd be a group activity with some hijinks.

As for the other routes, they aren't that hard to convert too. Probably the hardest to do would be Mio's, because honestly speaking, she seems the most distant out of all the group, which is also a little bit emphasized as a dilemma in her own route. So after Komari, I can see Haruka finding a place to "belong to" among friends, despite the prejudices of the school (a little bit of Anego anger and some of the boys' reaction would be fitting). Kudo would also be nicely converted, making her dilemma of choosing between love and family something about yearning to go back to the circle of friends she left. Kurugaya...well, admittedly it might be hard too, since first part of her VN route revolves around Love-Love Hunters - I could see them somehow making it so Riki falls in love with her somehow? Then again, they could just eliminate the love part and thus LoliLoli Hunters, and then make it so only Riki (or Rin) recognizes the looping of days. It would be born of her desire, like Kengo, to keep playing forever.

This might also be a way to alleviate the issue of the common route somehow being too big to fit, all the closeness and bonding between the members can be done throughout the heroine routes themselves. Of course, they have to not forget "the secret of the world" and the spoiler route that follows from it, because that is the important pillar on which Little Busters! stands. But I believe if they can make the audience feel for the majority of the show that these are a group of friends that experience many fun and happy things together, and that there's no way they could ever be apart, then the animators will have accomplished one of their duties.

And then will come the fall, hopefully tastefully executed, like an astronaut cut loose from the spaceship to drift helplessly into the endless, cold void.

For me, I believe that many viewers want to have their own favorite girls ended up with the protagonist, and that's why I think Little Busters! is possible to do if they can carefully manipulate loop and reset. Further, if the anime really stick with the romantic point from the game, the good thing is they didn't have to adjust the route much and I believe it will really please the fan.

Since it is still only just 4 eps, I would not like to predict whether there is going to be loop and reset or not. But for me, the loop is the tool to show how Riki and Rin is getting stronger and stronger. And for me, I expect the anime to have many loops to express the meaning of the world's secret.

BTW, the question after I watched episode 4 is still why anime needs to put Komari's route really early? If the anime really want to have the gang going with Komari, I think it is better to have Riki recruited all girls and then go together.

P.S. I hope I can still see the final scene of Komari's route that only Riki and Komari walks together, not a bunch of silly group also stick with them like latest episode.

For me, the way they're doing the Komari route makes a lot of sense. Her friendship with Rin is being played up and ultimately, in the game, Rin's development was often side stepped because of the perspective issues.

It's not really about the romance as much as it is about strengthening Riki and, yes, Rin, as characters. So this route, at least, makes a lot of sense from that perspective.

The concern I have is that I don't think this works nearly as well with any other route. Are there ways of stripping out the remaining romances? For some of the arcs I could see it, but it's a very tricky line they're treading if they want to remain true to the spirit of the original work.

The second episode, where Riki had his flashback to the routes, made me think they're doing this like Clannad, wherein we're basically watching the last non-Refrain playthrough. Which implied to me they're going to try and eliminate the romances. And for a non-game player, it might work well enough.

That said, all six routes, including Komari's, focused very heavily on the one-to-one relationship between Riki and the girl in question. A lot of them ultimately boiled down to Riki being the only person with a strong enough relationship to bring the girl out of the depths of despair. They would need to do major writing changes to affect that dynamic.

Which brings me to the loops. I have a theory on how they could reasonably do this without making it very obvious to the viewer. At first you need to make them pretty much invisible to the viewer. Make it seem like it's a completely linear story, by making it transition back to the common route and just not mention any fallout from the Komari route. The way her route ends; indeed, the way most of the routes end, lend themselves to this. It would be increasingly jarring, but that's part of the point.

They could do this with or without the romances, but if you do it with the romances from the very beginning it becomes too jarring too quickly. I'd get the ones you can feasibly strip the love aspect from out of the way, like Komari's and maybe Haruka's (Kud is where you start getting really iffy) before you get into the really out there Mio and Yuiko routes where the romance is damn near inextricable. I'd also probably try to get Rin I in after the second route, but they might not have time for that and may just have to settle for Riki getting an ominous feeling when they do Rin II.

That way, as the stories get weirder, a sense of "something is wrong here" builds for the uninitiated viewer. You start off with a normal Key thing of mostly ignoring the plot elements of the previous arc, to outright "forgetting" budding relationships as the show becomes increasingly weirder and supernatural in nature. There's no real way to keep the viewer from guessing at least part of the secret of the world if you do it this way, but that in my mind is okay if the alternative is keeping the loops out of the story until the very end.

Just wanna point out that, at least for me, the fact that I want romance between Riki and the girls has nothing to do with liking certain pairings...or else I'd only want romance between Riki and Anego >_>

It's just that a strong relationship between Riki and some of the girls is incredibly important to the route itself and taking that element out could seriously damage the plot.
LB (and some other KEY works) is not one of those VNs where they just throw in romance between the protagonist and the main heroines to appease the player behind the MC, the romances ARE an important element of the plot, along with the loops.
The loops are incredibly important, VN players will remember that feeling you get when you play the common route and Riki and Rin behave progressively different with each playthrough.

I love watching Anime based of Manga and VN I'm read/played, but I always rather they stay faithful to the original work than add or change important plot elements. I love the anime versions because I can see the series I love in an animated form...if they change or eliminate major points of the plot I usually can't keep watching it.

That said, I do like the fact that they are involving Rin a bit more with Komari...it was always a major gripe I've had with the VN when in Refrain you see this strong bond between Rin and Komari yet in the whole VN we did not see anything that warranted that level of relationship.

They seem to be going down a route of friendship versus romance, which is fine to me because even in Refrain Riki dosen't have to romance with Rin. However, I'll wait and see...they'll have to have romance in Anego, since that's integral, but mayyybe with Kud, they can have a "friends versus mother" rather then "boyfriend versus mother". I thought that part in the VN was rather cheesy anyway.

The loops are incredibly important, VN players will remember that feeling you get when you play the common route and Riki and Rin behave progressively different with each playthrough.

Which brings me to my concerns and questions. Are they ignoring Riki's and Rin's character development? Especially Rin... Isn't she most cautious of Haruka out of all the girls? But instead of seeing Rin keeping her distance, we see her standing RIGHT NEXT to Haruka, even sort of talking to her.

I could not help to find that really odd for her to be standing there instead of next to Riki and saying something like "Riki look, that bandage" then eventually Haruka going "Komari gave it to me!" or whatever she said.

I kinda liked how the current Little Busters group all went to the old folks home, it was a nice anime original. Kousuke's and Anego's reaction to how much of an "idol" Komari is was so priceless.

But then we have that rushed ending for the episode... Not sure what to make of it. There was not even enough time to set the mood between Riki, Komari, the old yeller (forgot his name). They could've easily made him say when Riki asked him why he doesn't want Komari near him...

Old man: "She and I should never meet. Boy if you're done here, you can leave."
Riki tries to pry out a clear answer to his question.
Old man: "Boy... NOW IS MY NAP TIME! GET OUT OF HEEEERRREE!"
Riki hurriedly closes the door as he leaves.
Riki: "Good grief..."

Which brings me to my concerns and questions. Are they ignoring Riki's and Rin's character development? Especially Rin... Isn't she most cautious of Haruka out of all the girls? But instead of seeing Rin keeping her distance, we see her standing RIGHT NEXT to Haruka, even sort of talking to her.

I could not help to find that really odd for her to be standing there instead of next to Riki and saying something like "Riki look, that bandage" then eventually Haruka going "Komari gave it to me!" or whatever she said.

I've said it before in Episode 2, within the span of a single episode Rin seemed to go from first loop to third loop in term of confidence and communication with others. At first it was done right with her keeping her distance with Komari and not even saying a word, but after Komari fell it was like Rin suddenly leveled interaction wise. It was really odd to me and again it served to tell me that they probably won't be using loops at all and have Riki and Rin evolve with this fusion of common route with girl routes.

I certainly did not like how all the Little Busters went together to the old folks home, to me it was a clear message that they plan on involving the rest of the LB group in the girl's routes so as to not form any bonds beyond friendship between Riki and the girls.

That was the biggest problem with ep 4, for me.

It's ok if it doesn't happen again in the next 2 eps.
But if it does, it's gonna be bad.

Because it seems like Kyousuke is helping too much.
I really don't like that idea, the thing about Riki having to become strong himself was very important.

But if Rin does the routes along with Riki, I think that's ok.
Not really the best, because Kyousuke's plan was also to make Rin stronger by herself(and she does in the vn, by become friendly with the girls without too much help from Riki), but... We have to see Rin becoming stronger some way or the other.

To be honest, Riki looks like "plenty" capable as of now. In fact, I see him much more confident and standing his own ground in the anime, which felt... weird, considering how calm and "wimpy" he was in the beginning.

I was expecting him to be scared shitless by Yuiko back in ep3, and he was just startled.

Thinking about if they would go no loop, makes me fear for Mio, as well as "her" (Is it alright to throw her name out?)
It causes a paradox you won't be able to fix like, only Rin and Riki can know because basically only Riki would be that close, and yet it would be a romantic implication....
But then Rin wouldn't be canon romantic interest....
Also the paradox about basically everyone not realizing something is wrong and stuff.
Mio route has like the most magic hijinks that would make you realize something is up....
And besides, I personally think it would be the last route to be entered, as it connects a whole bunch with the "secret of the world "(same with Yuiko route, both are roughly the same but the other is more obvious from start).
I really hope they go with the loops. to be more true to the original source

To be honest, Riki looks like "plenty" capable as of now. In fact, I see him much more confident and standing his own ground in the anime, which felt... weird, considering how calm and "wimpy" he was in the beginning.

I was expecting him to be scared shitless by Yuiko back in ep3, and he was just startled.

Exactly, both Riki and Rin give the feeling of being in advanced playthroughs already or quickly jump up in "levels" within an episode.
That and how Jasque mentioned, with the rest of the LB getting involved with the routes, how are they all supposed to become strong and independent which was always Kyousuke's plan.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Meltyred

Thinking about if they would go no loop, makes me fear for Mio, as well as "her" (Is it alright to throw her name out?)
It causes a paradox you won't be able to fix like, only Rin and Riki can know because basically only Riki would be that close, and yet it would be a romantic implication....
But then Rin wouldn't be canon romantic interest....
Also the paradox about basically everyone not realizing something is wrong and stuff.
Mio route has like the most magic hijinks that would make you realize something is up....
And besides, I personally think it would be the last route to be entered, as it connects a whole bunch with the "secret of the world "(same with Yuiko route, both are roughly the same but the other is more obvious from start).
I really hope they go with the loops. to be more true to the original source

Spoilers are fine here, people in this thread should have already played the whole game.

I believe that if anything Anego's route should be the very last one before Rin and Refrain, most because it is the route that reveals the most clues about the true nature of the world.

Honestly still don't know how they will show Anego's route without using loops...I swear if they change her route to adapt to the no loop thing I'm gonna snap.

Exactly, both Riki and Rin give the feeling of being in advanced playthroughs already or quickly jump up in "levels" within an episode.
That and how Jasque mentioned, with the rest of the LB getting involved with the routes, how are they all supposed to become strong and independent which was always Kyousuke's plan.

Spoilers are fine here, people in this thread should have already played the whole game.

I believe that if anything Anego's route should be the very last one before Rin and Refrain, most because it is the route that reveals the most clues about the true nature of the world.

Honestly still don't know how they will show Anego's route without using loops...I swear if they change her route to adapt to the no loop thing I'm gonna snap.

I think I have a feeling that LB is just covering things up by making it look like it's just one timeline for as long as possible. It's not like there's a date to every episode.